By Royane Real

Author of   “Your Guide to Making Friendly Conversation”

I often get letters from people who ask me how they can improve conversation skills.  Sometimes they want help to overcome bad conversation habits.

Several of my readers have told me that they often criticize themselves very harshly after a conversation is over.  They tell themselves that everything they said during the conversation was stupid and they are convinced that the person they were talking with is laughing at them.

They wanted to know what they could do to stop this pattern of harshly evaluating themselves after a conversation.

First, you need to know that criticizing yourself harshly will not improve your ability to make conversation successfully.  Criticizing yourself is a behaviour you need to stop so that real improvement can take place.

In this article I will give you some techniques to overcome bad conversation habits without yelling at yourself in your mind.

You can often stop the negative harsh criticism of yourself after a conversation by learning to be more objective about your judgments.  Instead of just saying lots of negative things to yourself, look for real evidence of specific behaviors that you did well and then look for specific behaviours that you didn’t do very well.

Don’t spend any time trying to figure out what the other person thought of you.

Here is an example of looking for some positive behaviors you did well in the conversation:   Perhaps you were very conscientious about really listening to the other person.  You were very careful not to interrupt them while they were speaking. You made an effort to make eye contact even though it is difficult for you.

Congratulate yourself for all the things you did well.

Give yourself credit for trying.

What about the negative things you may have done in the conversation?

Once again, stick to specific behaviours.  Don’t make assumptions about what the other person may have thought of you.

Don’t look for a long list of things you did wrong.  Make your list of negative behaviours no longer than one or two items.  For example, a list of negative conversation behaviours might be:  You spent a lot of time talking about how much you hate your job.  You sometimes looked down at the ground while you were talking. 

You don’t need to make a longer list of negative conversation behaviours.

Why should you only look for one or two things you did poorly? 

Because you can only correct one or two things at a time.  A longer list of so called “faults”  will be too overwhelming.  A long list of negative behaviours can make you start attacking yourself instead of attacking the behaviours you want to eliminate.

Give yourself credit for the specific things you did well.  This type of positive reinforcement will increase the good behaviours you want to promote.

You can also ask yourself what you might want to do better or differently the next time you have a conversation.  For example, maybe you talked too much about why you hate your boss, even when the other person was starting to look bored with the topic.

To improve your conversation performance, you need to look for very specific behaviours you can correct in the future. When you find something in your conversation performance that you might want to change, it’s very important that you don’t actually criticize yourself as a human being.

If you notice yourself saying things like, “How could I be so stupid, I must really be an idiot!”,  this kind of statement is actually an attack on yourself.  You are attacking yourself and not your behaviour.  An attack on yourself won’t work.  It will just make you feel terrible.    

Stick to objectively looking for specific behaviours that you want to do more of, as well as the specific behaviours you want to do less often. 

Reinforce the positive behaviours that you want more of, and slowly chip away at the negative behaviours that you want less of.

This article was written by conversation expert Royane Real.  

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Learn to Make conversation Effortlessly!

By Royane Real

Are you tired of being tongue tied or not knowing what to say to people?  Would your life be better if you could make conversation more easily? 

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